


Savoir Faire

by marrieddorks



Series: the truth about secret relationships [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Tension, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 03:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrieddorks/pseuds/marrieddorks
Summary: It's been three months since Damen and Laurent started this thing, and yet they don't really talk.





	Savoir Faire

**Author's Note:**

> so, and hear me out, i have so many little one-shots planned for this 'verse. it wasn't intended to be like this, but here i am so....
> 
> i doubt many, if any, will get beyond being 3k in length (i could be very wrong), but with what i have planned i'm hoping it will still be a lot to feel like a completed little world. i hope that the more stories i get out, the easier this all will be to piece together, like a fun, sex-filled puzzle of damen and laurent being stubborn.

A text that had been sent out by Auguste saying “7 @ Karthas?” and the array of responses that followed it meant no one was actually going to be at the bar until half an hour later anyway and that would only be a portion of them.

Damen had planned to get there at 7:30, when the first of them would be walking in, but he was running more behind than everybody else thanks to a minor traffic jam and his coach keeping the team an extra ten minutes to grill into them the importance of their form. By the time he found a place to park and Karthas was in his eyesight, his watch read 7:52. He felt his pockets for his wallet and dodged out of the way of some kid on skateboard, and he almost physically ran into Laurent.

Laurent looked unbothered at nearly being toppled over on the sidewalk.

All of his hair was tossed over one shoulder and his black coat was buttoned up up to his chin. The darkening sky behind him almost matched the blue of his eyes and Damen couldn’t help but recall two nights ago when they had rolled back into his head as he came for the second time.

Damen cleared his throat.

“Hi,” he greeted, his hands going deep into his own coat’s pockets to keep from fiddling with something.

It had been three months. Three months since he and Laurent had started this _thing_, whatever it really was. He remembered what he had said, remembered what Laurent had said then, but a part of him thought – maybe even hoped, he hesitantly wondered – things would be different between them out here too.

Laurent greeted him the way Laurent greeted most anybody else though: with a nod of acknowledgement for Damen’s existence and nothing more. Then he was reaching for the door to the bar and Damen was scrambling to do the same. Their hands touched and neither moved for a moment.

“Don’t,” Laurent said. He didn’t elaborate, didn’t do much of anything except shoulder his way into the place first.

Damen was going to say something as he followed, but Laurent was quick without making it look like he was trying to get away from anything or anyone and was already seated at the bar next to Berenger. Anything he would have said would have been lost in the noise anyway.  
Damen was greeted loudly by everyone else. Lazar, as per usual, nearly knocked him over with a sloppy arm around Damen’s broad shoulders and an equally sloppy kiss to his cheek, and Nik was next to him immediately, asking how practice had gone and telling Damen that his coach didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

A beer was in his hands within minutes and he found himself swept up into conversations that were quickly becoming more slurred as the time went by. From the table he was sitting at, Damen found himself stealing glances at Laurent still up at the bar. He couldn’t help that his eyes were drawn to Laurent, drawn to the way his fingers were mindlessly dancing on the bartop, drawn to the way he sucked in a breath after a drink of his mostly-vodka, drawn to the pronounced curve of his waist from how he was sitting on the barstool.

The only time Laurent’s conversation lagged was when Auguste finally arrived.

Ever busy, no one expected Auguste on time to anything ever, even if, yes, he sent out the text to meet up in the first place. An hour late was the earliest he was going to show up to anything and that was that. But when he did, the entire room was electrified.

Damen, much like everyone else, loved Auguste. He really did. Auguste and him were the mergers of their whole group, the Arles native and the Ios boy who met in a seminar course for a class on military-strategies from ancient civilizations and the rest was history. The quickness and strength of the bond he built with Auguste damn near rivaled the one with Nik. But part of him, just a part, was envious of him.

Laurent stayed underneath Auguste’s shoulder, having abandoned the barstool for a booth too, and his contentment there was written on his face. He had a peace about him when he was around Auguste, a peace that made him a tad less intimidating to those around him.

Damen knew it was a sibling bond, a relationship made unbreakable by what they had endured together as children, but it didn’t mean he didn’t want part of that with Laurent. It didn’t mean he didn’t want the peace for himself.

“I’m signing up for a charity rugby match,” Auguste told them all after getting his beer from the bartender.

“What kind of charity match? For what charity?”

“Something for the schools,” Auguste said flippantly. “All I know is that it’s a skins and skins game.”

“Skins and skins, you say?” Lazar’s attention was sold.

“Yeah, they’re just spreading paints on everybody and sending them onto the field. Girls are lining up for tickets already.”

“You’re shameless,” Laurent said, rolling his eyes.

“I’m trying to recruit, be quiet,” Auguste teased.

“Oh, I’m most definitely in,” Lazar said and he slapped his hands onto the tabletop to further accentuate his point.

“Nik, Damen, I know you two want in,” Auguste said.

Damen chanced a look at Laurent.

He seemed less than interested in the conversation if the way he was mouthing to Jord, telling him to have some respect for himself, was anything to go by.

“I’m in,” Damen agreed.

“Try to get us on a red team,” Nik said, “it’s our color.”

Everyone ended up agreeing to sign up except for Berenger, Laurent, and Rochert, but only because he already had an ankle brace on.

“Beyond the desire to have girls ogle you,” Laurent asked Auguste, his elbow digging into the older’s rib cage, “what’s the catch here?”

“Helping the children, but of course,” Auguste feigned innocence.

“Yeah right,” Laurent said.

“Oh, I know what this is about!” Jord said, and he was drunk so it was loud and he was leaning across the table with a finger pointed to accompany the beginning of his accusation. “This is something for that girl, that teacher girl!”

“That’s right!” Orlant agreed. “Kyrina?”

“That hot chick we saw with those snot-crusted brats outside the museum last month?” Lazar asked.

“Why were you at a museum?”

“Sushi place across the street.”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Auguste said, and he was laughing. “She’s helping to raise money for her school to get a sensory room for kids with disabilities and I may have suggested that I could find some boys to put on quite a show.”

“Is it appropriate to be putting on a softcore pornographic event to raise money for a school?” Laurent asked, but he was laughing too.

“Probably not, but it’s going to work and she’ll love me.”

It was working.

The charity match had been scheduled, against all planning advice, for that Friday.

Under the watchful eyes of a crowd of at least two hundred, all thirty of the selfless volunteers pulled their shirts off. There was a high-pitched, simultaneous “Whoo!” from the girls all sitting in the first two rows, and Damen could hear at least a dozen individual wolf whistles.

“Is it bad that I bask in this attention?” Lazar asked, but it seemed to be rhetorical if his flexing meant anything.

Damen was going to say such, but then he saw Laurent.

He looked out of place, but not at the fault of his own awkwardness. He was wearing the same coat he had worn to the bar the other night and a pair of black boots that matched. All of it, paired with his natural elegance, made him stand out in a crowd predominantly full of young women in jeans and sports tees and men wearing shorts no matter the weather outside.

Damen was jogging over before he could think about how bad of an idea it was.

“Hi,” he greeted, and this time he didn’t have any pockets to put his hands into. It occurred to him right then that in the last week, the only thing he had said to Laurent was a lame “Hi.” They hadn’t had time to meet up with Kyrina being at Auguste and Laurent’s place planning this event.

“What are you doing?” Laurent asked him. He was looking over Damen’s shoulder, assumingly for Auguste. Then he was looking at Damen, his eyes doing a quick scan up and down.

“We, uh, we haven’t talked in a while,” Damen said. Cringingly, he realized he was leaning a shoulder against the bleachers with his arms crossed over his chest like a boy in high school chatting up one of the cheerleaders before the game.

“We haven’t ever talked,” Laurent said.

“Yes, we have.”

“No, Damen, we haven’t.” Laurent sighed, his shoulders sagging, and with a forceful hand, he grabbed at Damen’s wrist and dragged him further away from the eyes of people. “We don’t talk, we never have, and we’re not going to start now. Our relationship is –”

“Complicated?”

“Simple.”

Damen swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Laurent started, taking a wide step around Damen’s large form, “I’m off to prove to my brother I bought a ticket to this godforsaken thing so he will get off my back.”

“What was that about?” Nik asked him when he came jogging back.

“What?”

“Talking to Laurent?”

“Was he threatening you should you tackle Auguste too hard?” Rochert asked, adjusting his crutches under his arms.

“Oh, that? No, he was just asking about Kyrina. He thinks it might actually be serious between her and Auguste,” Damen lied easily.

All other conversation was lost when cold paint started getting slathered on everybody. As promised, Auguste got Damen and Nik on the red team. They had red hand prints on their pectorals and quick red swipes underneath their eyes, but none of that mattered because within fifteen minutes, everyone was a smudged mess of dirt, blue and red paint, and a lot of sweat.

“And we’re at halftime of our charity match,” the announcer declared over the stadium mic.

“Why do we let you talk us into anything?” Jord asked Auguste while holding at his left elbow. Auguste wasn’t available to answer that question, not with Kyrina immediately all over him, her eyes appreciative and her bottom lip bitten into a pretty pout.

“Can’t believe so many girls are into this,” Orlant grinned.

“Yes, you can. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“It’s like the male equivalent to girls jello wrestling.”

“Literally no one does jello wrestling.”

They were being ushered off the field for the halftime show entertainment, another event Auguste had graciously agreed to take part of, and there was so much adrenaline still rushing, so much noise from the crowd, that no one noticed Damen disappear into the completely empty girls’ locker room.

“Wha –” he started to try and say, his voice muffled behind a familiar hand.

“Believe me when I say that you don’t want to call attention to us,” Laurent told him, but the movement of his other hand already down Damen’s shorts betrayed the seriousness behind his eyes.

“It’s only halftime,” Damen managed to say with what little of his brain was still intact. Laurent twisted his wrist, just underneath the head of Damen’s cock, and he nearly doubled over at the rush of pleasure.

“And we have ten minutes.”

Damen was two minutes late to getting back on the field. It was impossible to tell if he looked any different before, but it could be assured that all the paint was newly smeared and staining Laurent’s very nice coat. Glancing a look back at the bleachers, Damen found Laurent’s head of blond hair missing and a part of him couldn’t help but be smug that it was because what they had done would be obvious if Laurent did sit back where he was.

They lost against Auguste’s blue team by three points. Kyrina jumped into Auguste’s awaiting arms the moment the final whistle blew, her legs tight around his waist, her pink shirt turning into cotton candy with his paint, and Damen walked out to his car alone after cleaning up in the boys’ crowded locker room.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr quite often under the same name, marrieddorks ❤ come chat if you'd like!


End file.
